


The Upside Down Triangle

by srm14250



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: 1980s, Coming Out, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Who's to Say, aren't they all, arrr ya reddie kids, jk, microagressions are fun, my boys b gay, oof, spoiler free, stan might be too, triangles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 13:50:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20658290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srm14250/pseuds/srm14250
Summary: arrr ya reddie kids?aye aye captain.i can’t hear you.aye aye captain.oooooohhhhhhhhhhhwho live in constant fear because of a clown?eddie and richie.who experience homophobia from the whole town?eddie and richie.who’s adorable banter makes your heart cry,eddie and richiewhen one of them sadly and suddenly DIES.eddie and richie.ORStan has the idea to talk about everyone's experience with It, in hopes of achieving some kind of closure. Eddie and Richie both leave out some details, but Richie doesn't know to leave out the upside down triangle of red balloons. Eddie then realizes he might not be alone after all.





	The Upside Down Triangle

Originally it was Stan’s idea.

“When people go through traumatic things,” he said late one night in their underground hideout, “They talk about it to therapists. But we kind of can’t, so how about we talk about it with ourselves?”

“It as in  _ It  _ or it as in trauma?” Eddie asked.

“Well… both?”

No one seemed too amused by the idea, but they all knew they were still losing sleep and sanity, despite It being gone for months. And so, although it was slow going, each of the losers eventually opened up into detail about what each of them had seen.

Bev talked about the hair from the sink, things they whispered to her, and of course, the blood. Ben talked about the corpses that chased him after learning about Derry’s dark history. Stan talked about the woman in the painting: how she disappeared and reappeared to chase him. Mike talked about the burnt and melting hands reaching out through the door, just like his parents’ had years and years ago. Bill talked about seeing Georgie in the basement, blaming him for his death, and confessed that he wasn’t really sick the day he went missing.

Eddie of course knew what he had to leave out. No one knew what exactly he was afraid of, and it was his plan for no one to find out. It was easy enough to explain the sick man as just that, a sick man, without going into detail about what  _ kind  _ of sick he was, and the things he said to him. It was easy for the others to believe that Eddie was simply a germaphobe, which of course he was, so none of them would question him if he said that’s all it was. After all, Stan was afraid of a painting, and that wasn’t very deep.

Richie was last to go, but unlike Eddie he didn’t know what to leave out. Of course, he didn’t mention It chanting “I know your secret, your dirty little secret,” because that would mean telling the rest of the group what exactly his secret was. But he didn’t know to leave out the upside down triangle of red balloons.

“You’re sure?” Eddie asked, before he had the better judgment not to.

“Yeah Eddie, I have the shit in my pants to prove it.”

“No, I mean the balloons, dumbass.”

Richie gave him a confused look. “Why does it matter? Didn’t we all see red balloons? That’s kind of like, It’s thing?”

Eddie looked around the room at the rest of his friends, and no one except for him seemed to know the significance of the shape. “Never mind,” he blurted out.

“Well Stanley, I think we can all agree that this was a gigantic fucking waste of time,” Richie declared after a brief period of silence. “Seriously though, does anyone feel even a little bit better?”

Everyone shook their heads, except for Eddie, who stayed quiet, but no one seemed to notice. Eddie did feel a little bit better, not from talking about the sick man, but from hearing from Richie that he might not be alone after all.

“It’s late,” Bill said. “Maybe we should all just head home.”

“You tried,” Richie said, jokingly patting Stan’s shoulder as he stood up to leave.

And with that, the losers went to their respective homes.

Eddie wanted to talk to Richie; tell him that he saw the triangle too, maybe tell him the part he left out to everyone else. But he thought that maybe, just maybe it was a coincidence. After all, they both saw a red triangle, not a pink one, although maybe that was just because It couldn’t be bothered to ruin the red balloon aesthetic. Maybe he was wrong about what it meant entirely. But if he was right, it meant that his best friend was like him after all.

***

“Richie!” he heard from behind him, riding his bike home from school. Richie turned to see Eddie, pedaling full speed toward him.

“Edds, I don’t want to hear about your mom’s crabs.”

“Shut the fuck up!” he yelled back, after using his inhaler. “I actually need to talk to you!”

Richie sighed, and stopped his bike on the side of the road, allowing his friend to catch up.

“Finally. Jesus, are you deaf? I’ve been screaming your name for like, 5 blocks.”

“Hmm, funny, your mom said the same thing last night.”

“That doesn’t even make sense and you know it doesn’t.”

He knew it didn’t, but of course, Richie could never pass up the opportunity.

“But seriously, I need to talk to you.”

Richie stepped off his bike. “So? Talk.”

Eddie stepped off his own bike. He looked like he was going to say something, but closed his mouth and looked around nervously. “Not here, not in public.”

Richie laughed. “Um, are you trying to kidnap me or something?”

“No, I-”

“I’m just saying, anytime someone says ‘not in public’ it usually doesn’t end well.”

“Shut up, Richie! This is serious.”

Richie stopped. “Is this about It?”

“Yes. Well, no. Kind of. Just, can we go to your house or something? Is anyone home?”

“I don’t think so, I’m pretty sure the house is empty.”

“Perfect,” Eddie said, hopping on his bike.

The two of them made their way to Richie’s house, and after unlocking the door with the spare key under the rock in the front garden, the most obvious place to put a key, in Richie’s opinion, they made their way inside.

“Hello?” Richie called into the empty house to ensure that it was, in fact, an empty house. He heard no response. The coast was clear. “Okay, now what is this about?”

Eddie dropped his backpack at the door, and carefully placed his inhaler back into his pocket. The bike ride was rough on his lungs, and even though he knew that if he slowed down, Richie would match his pace, he didn’t want to slow him down.

“It’s about what you said the other day,” he said.

“What did I say?”

Eddie took a seat in the living room, just next to the front door. “I don’t think you told us everything about It.”

Richie took a seat next to him. “What do you mean? Of course I did. There was the statue that cased me, I told myself it wasn’t real, and then It showed up.”

“But what did It  _ say? _ ”

He didn’t answer for a minute, trying to think of a way to carefully phrase his words. “I… I don’t remember.”

“See, that right there,” Eddie said, pointing a finger at him, “is bullshit.”

Richie laughed nervously, but didn’t say anything.

“I’ll tell you everything,” Eddie proposed, “if you tell me everything.”

“What’s there to tell you?”

Eddie sighed. “So you really don’t know about the triangle thing?”

Richie was confused. “What, like the illuminati?”

“No, dumbass, the upside down pink triangle. Ringing any bells?”

Richie just shrugged.

“It’s one of the symbols the nazis used. It means you’re gay.”

Richie’s face fell. But then, immediately, he thought it must have been some sort of joke. Eddie must have been kidding. He couldn’t have been implying that-

“I saw it too.”

Richie finally looked up at him, and saw that he was serious. This wasn’t an accusation, this was comradery. “Does that mean… are you…”

“I think so,” Eddie answered, before making Richie stumble his way through the rest of the question. “I haven’t told anyone. But yeah, I think so.”

For a second, Eddie was terrified. He was hopelessly terrified that he would lose a friend over this. There was still a chance he was wrong. Or even if he was right, Richie could still deny it, and in turn deny him. He wanted to take it back, he wished he could go back, but he dug this hole himself and had no one else to blame for his actions. But that second, after all, was only a second. It did not last long.

“Thank  _ god. _ ”

Richie wrapped his arms around him, and squeezed so tight it almost caused another asthma attack. “Shit, I thought I was the only one.”

“Of course you’re not.” And he wasn’t. Not for the hundreds of millions of gay people in the world, but because of the one that was there with them. He wasn’t the only one in Derry, he wasn’t even the only one in the loser’s club. “I’m here,” he said. And he was, in every sense of the word.

They stayed there in silence for a long time, as nothing they needed to say could be put into words, and any attempt to do so would be superficial and meaningless. But then, all at once, real life crashed down on them, when Richie had a sudden question pop into his mind.

“Do we tell anyone?” he asked, fear in his eyes, so intense that it rivaled the fear from It itself.

Eddie looked back at him. He tried to think of something to say, something that would be both comforting and true. The best he could come up with was, “Maybe not our parents, but I don’t think the losers would judge us.” Of course, he had no idea if that was the case. It was at best wishful thinking. But there was still some part of him that felt it to be true.

Either way, they decided to make a plan. They were going to tell their friends.

“If they drop us, then they’re dickturds. It’s their loss, not ours,” Richie tried to rationalize. But that didn’t make it any easier.

They all met up once again in their secret underground hideout, which of course Ben was very proud of, despite Eddie’s reluctance when it was first built. One by one each of the losers climbed down the ladder, and instinctively placed showercaps on their heads to keep spiders from landing in their hair.

“Guys, we have to tell you something,” Eddie said, sounding braver than he actually was.

“Yeah, and for once it’s actually not about Eddie’s mother.”

“Okay, then what  _ is _ it about?” Bev asked, lighting another cigarette.

“You guys realize you didn’t have to call a special meeting, we all pretty much only hang out with each other anyway,” Mike pointed out.

“That is… unfortunately true,” Stan added.

Eddie and Richie looked at each other, then back at the group, in case this was the last time they’d all be together, the last time things were normal.

“Ready?” Richie said.

Eddie nodded.

They both took a deep breath. “We’re gay,” they said in sync, just as they practiced.

No one said anything, and Richie seemed to be the only one who noticed that Stan was smiling. But still, the silence was deafening, and no one was quite sure how to break it. Apparently none of them needed to, because eventually Eddie let out what felt like the loudest sneeze of his life.

“Bless you,” Stan said out of reflex.

“Thanks,” Eddie said, pulling out one of the tissues from his pocket that he always kept on hand. “My allergies kicking up again.”

Richie looked around at the group. “Goddamn it, Edds. Can anyone say something that’s  _ not _ related to mucus?”

“I can’t help it. Sneezing is involuntary, asshole.”

And maybe it was that moment, of Eddie and Richie acting the same, because they  _ were _ the same, that made the losers realize that they didn’t have to view them as alien. Nothing had changed, not really. The information they had been given did not have to change their entire view of them.

“Whatever you choose,” Bev said finally, “We’ll support you.”

“Yeah, I mean, I can’t say I get it, but you can do whatever you want,” Ben added.

Eddie wanted to scream “I didn’t choose this,” but he remained silent. He wanted to explain the years of repressing and denying his sexuality. He wanted to describe the torment that he was in trying to hide it. He wanted them to understand the shame and hatred he felt towards himself. This was not simply something he decided to be one day. This was something he was born with. No matter how hard he tried to change, this part of him was stubborn, and refused to go away. But of course, anything that wasn’t outright hatred was about the best he could hope for. Afterall, most people would not be as kind. Even if they were ignorant, it was better than being hateful. So the best he could do was softly mutter “Thank you,” as his friends incorrectly believed they were saying the right thing. At the end of the day, he accomplished what he wanted to. He no longer had to lie to his friends, neither did Richie, and that was something to be happy about.

His friends were there. They all finally knew the truth and they were still there. Eddie truly believed that nothing could separate them.

**Author's Note:**

> lol they didn't all stay together spoilers for chapter 2 I guess


End file.
